


and without any feet can go to you

by sofuckingblue



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amnesia, College, Gay Eddie Kaspbrak, Gay Richie Tozier, Getting Together, Good Parents Maggie & Wentworth Tozier, M/M, Mutual Pining, Richie Tozier's Internalized Homophobia, Sonia Kaspbrak's A+ Parenting, Temporary Amnesia, i didnt tag the rest of the losers in as characters, theyre in like one (1) scene but they do exist
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-29
Updated: 2020-03-05
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:42:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22486534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sofuckingblue/pseuds/sofuckingblue
Summary: Eddie: “I don’t think I’d be able to share a room with Richie for more than a week without strangling him.”Richie: “I guess I have literally no choice but to stay in Maine and ruin it for ya, huh?”Richie thinks his parents' idea to try a year close to home before he leaves them for UCLA is pretty stupid, right up until Eddie looks him in the eye and lies about being okay that they're separating. So he goes to UMaine with Eddie.They forget each other anyway. Then they remember each other again. Then they forget again. Remember again, forget again, make out at a party, and rememberagain... in that order.Presumably, Pennywise is somewhere in the Derry sewers feeling some type of way about all this.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 11
Kudos: 23





	1. January - August 1994: If I should stay, I would only be in your way

**Author's Note:**

> Assorted warnings for brief inclusion of general college buffoonery, frat boys being frat boys, homophobia, underage drinking, first-time sex between 18-year-olds, and general warnings for, you know, the IT canon being their remembered childhoods, although I don't go into too much detail (I assume you have seen the films). Also a warning that I have fudged a few timeline things and a few practical things. If it's gonna super bother you that I mention a comic that wasn't published yet or that an offhand mention of someone pledging a frat is inaccurate... you're gonna have a bad time.
> 
> Set in movieverse; bits may have been incorporated from book canon and miniseries canon, I wasn't thinking too hard about it but I definitely don't stick to established book/miniseries canon either. Rating and tags subject to change.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Couple chapter notes: 
> 
> 1\. Bev and Ben have both left Derry by high school. The OG 4 losers and Mike are still there in senior year. Don't think about it too hard, it doesn't really come up and I went with what worked.
> 
> 2\. This particular version of Mags and Went are pretty ok parents... nosy, pushy, wanting Richie to do what they want him to do... but decent. They try. Again... don't think about it too hard. I went with what worked.

_January, 1994_

“So, Eds,” said Richie, kicking a rock across the parking lot as they trudged away from the high school. 

“I don’t wanna hear it, Richie,” snapped Eddie. They’d only been back from winter break for three days and he was already sick of hearing about how his new winter coat made him look like a lavender-and-green marshmallow. “Get some new fucking material.”

“Whoa, what’d I say?” said Richie, holding out his hands in front of himself defensively. Eddie whirled on him to demand that he shut the _fuck_ up, already, and the jacket made a loud swishing noise as it rubbed against itself and his backpack straps. He closed his eyes momentarily in defeat as Richie started cackling.

“Speaking of material,” said Richie, and Eddie had to open his eyes so that he could more easily shove him into a nearby snowbank.

Bill and Stan found them sat side-by-side on top of the snow a couple of minutes later, still tussling. Richie’s jeans were already soaked through from where he’d landed on his ass, and Eddie’s jacket, puffy and thick as it was, didn’t help much against the handfuls of dirty snow Richie had shoved up the back of his shirt. 

“Are you guys seventeen or suh-suh-seven,” Bill said. Stan said nothing, merely turned up his nose at them, but his disdain at their childish behavior apparently didn’t leave him too mature to get a couple good kicks in at Richie’s ankles when Richie tried to trip him into the snow with them. 

Finally, Eddie’s scrabbling fingers found a chunk of ice somewhere in the snow pile, and he held it up, brandishing it in between the two of them. “I could break your glasses with this, or I could crack you a good one, right in your hard head,” he threatened, and Richie squawked with laughter, let go of where he’d been clutching at Eddie’s sleeve, and fell sideways off the snowbank and onto the pavement, pinwheeling his arms and making a cartoonishly exaggerated yipping noise as he went.

“Shit,” he said faintly, lying there as Eddie struggled to his feet and shook the snow off of and out of his clothes. “Whah, my good _sirs_ , Ah _do_ dee- _clay_ -yuh, Ah am _feelin_ ’ slightly _faint_.” 

“I didn’t even hit you,” said Eddie. Stan kicked Richie again.

Richie seemed to decide the joke was over and leapt to his feet. As if there had never been an interruption in the first place, he started to head across the parking lot again, the same path they usually took off school grounds.

A few years ago the other three might have exchanged a look or two before following him, but at this point the exasperated glances were already implied. 

Nobody spoke until they’d made it onto the sidewalk and started making their way down the street. 

“So, Eds,” said Richie again, bravely.

“Beep _beep_ ,” said Eddie, through his teeth.

“No, for real,” said Richie. “I was gonna ask something for real the first time, too.”

“So ask, already.”

Richie grinned toothily at him, then at Bill and Stan. “We still on for movie night? Wayne’s World?”

Eddie’s face fell. “My mom _freaked_ when she found out I went to see the first one,” he said quietly. “I’ll have to sneak out.” 

“Nah,” said Richie. “Just tell her we’re going to see _Beethoven’s 2nd_ . It’s rated PG for mild language and _unsuitable teen behavior_ , so she’ll be so concerned about that she won’t even suspect you’re getting away with anything.”

Stan rolled his eyes. “You’ve been trying to get off a crack about that warning since you read it in the paper last month,” he groused. 

“Well, what am I _supposed_ to do?” Richie asked the world at large, gesticulating violently. “How am I supposed to make it in comedy if the friggin’ MPAA is funnier than anything I can come up with, without even trying?”

“I suppose yuh-you d-don’t,” said Bill, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “Muh-make it in comedy, that is.”

“Richie was never going to make it in comedy,” said Stan. “We all knew that.” 

“Hey hey hey, you’re _both_ gonna make it as a double act, the yank-Richie’s-chain roast extravaganza,” said Richie, sourly. “Anyway, are we goin’ to see Wayne and Garth or not?”

“It’s Friday night,” said Stan. “So, not me.”

“Aww, c’mon, Stan the man,” said Richie. “The rest of us skip church all the time.”

“It’s different,” Stan said, lightly, and for once Richie dropped it.

“How about you, Big Bill?” 

“I’m suh-sorry, Richie,” said Bill, looking genuinely contrite. “I have a history p-p-project due Monday and I haven’t even st-started it.”

Richies face vacillated between annoyed and disappointed for a few moments before he slung an arm around Eddie’s shoulder and squeezed. “So Eds, it’s a date, you and me, eh?”

“Don’t call me Eds,” sighed Eddie, knowing as he said it that it was essentially a yes.

They stopped by Eddie’s place first, so he could ask permission to go out and lie through his teeth about being a seventeen-year-old boy interested in seeing fucking _Beethoven’s 2nd_ , and Richie loitered on the porch while Eddie dropped off his backpack and grabbed some money out of his top nightstand drawer. Sonia hadn’t invited Richie into the house in literal years ( _oh, my aching, pining, yearning heartstrings!_ ) and he wasn’t about to piss her off and end up at the theater by himself, or worse, home alone on a Friday night. Pathetic. 

In another lifetime, Eddie’s sneakers were a little more scuffed and his hair a little more mussed, and Sonia decided to keep him home that weekend, and a couple of small changes snowballed into a very different future for everyone involved. 

Today though, she only tutted under her breath and made Eddie promise, on his way out the door, to eat some dinner at the Tozier house instead of filling up on junk at the movies. Richie grinned at the mental image of Eddie fucking Kaspbrak eating radioactive nacho cheese and a mystery meat movie theater hotdog, but piped up that his mom was making a pork roast, green beans and mashed potatoes and that he would make sure to feed him like the growing boy he was.

Both Kaspbraks scowled at him, so that was a winner, and he and Eddie headed home, where he sure as hell hoped Maggie actually was cooking something worthwhile and not planning on TV dinners again.

Luckily, when they got there, Richie’s mom actually did have a pork loin in the oven, and more luckily, she was happy to feed Eddie as well before they went out again.

His dad had just come to the table and started carving the roast, full on Ward Cleaver head-of-the-family style, and Eddie was serving himself some green beans (no mashed potatoes, unfortunately, but although they weren’t having Meat Loaf, two out of three ain’t bad, har dee har har) when Richie was blindsided by the ulterior motives his parents had apparently had for letting Eddie join them at such short notice without a word of complaint.

“So, Eddie, honey,” said Maggie, sweetly. “Have you finished applying for schools yet?”

 _Oh, fuck, not this conversation again_ , thought Richie. 

Eddie ducked his head, bashful. He never seemed to know how to respond when Richie’s parents were nice to him. Sometimes Richie had dark thoughts about how Eddie was unfamiliar with parental affection that didn’t come with a side of smothering.

“I only applied to one school,” said Eddie, “So I guess I finished in November.”

“One school?” said Wentworth, raising his eyebrows. The air of casualness he was projecting was so fake Richie could smell it. It was putting him off his pork.

“Yessir,” said Eddie, pushing his beans around his plate awkwardly. “I’m going to UMaine, or I don’t think I’m going at all… my mom wouldn’t do too well if I went any further from home than that.”

 _Ugh, Eds,_ _I trusted you_. Richie braced himself for the attention to turn to him, focusing sullenly on cutting the meat on his plate into ever-tinier pieces. He could feel his parents’ eyes on him but refused to look up.

“You might want to take a leaf out of Eddie’s book, son,” his dad said, mildly. “Staying close to home… at least for the first couple of years….”

“Here I thought college was s’posed to be for _new_ experiences,” Richie said, just as mild. He put his knife and fork down.

“Well, yes,” said his mom. “But you can do it in _steps_ , honey, you don’t have to move all the way out to _California_ for your freshman year!”

Eddie’s eyes had started to widen as he realized he’d inadvertently gotten tricked into the middle of an ongoing Tozier family argument. Under the table, Richie nudged his shoe against Eddie’s ankle. Eddie responded by kicking him back and stuffing his traitor face full of green beans. Great. 

“I just think UCLA is a good fit, ok, the guidance counselor said we should look for a school that was a good _fit_ ,” Richie whined. Internally, he winced. He was trying not to lie _too_ much — sure, he had his heart set on California, but that was mostly because he had his own agenda, namely dropping out as soon as he found a crappy off-campus apartment and whatever crappy job would pay the rent for it while he worked his way up the comedy ladder. If he did that three thousand miles away, it’d be way harder for his parents to guilt-trip him out of it. Like they were trying right now. 

“You’re seventeen,” said Wentworth, starting to get a little heated. “You don’t know what a good fit will be. What’s a better fit than going to school with your best friend? You can try Maine for undergrad, with Eddie, and then you can think of other options for grad school!”

“Grad school?” sneered Richie. They thought he was going to _grad_ school? “I’m not really thinking that far ahead,” he said. God, this was getting a little much for a conversation with Eddie right there. 

“You’re thinking a little _too_ far ahead, if you ask me,” his dad responded, looking stung. “Don’t you think you could put off being independent for a few more years? Room with your friend, have fun, take a chance to grow up a little before you leave us for the west coast.” 

Richie opened his mouth, slamming his palms on the table. 

“Hey!” said his mom, gesturing at the nice china. She always put it out if they had anyone over for dinner other than the three of them, even Richie’s friends. He stared, furiously, at the blue primrose on the butter dish. He couldn’t think of anything else to say that wouldn’t be cruel, or wouldn’t give him away, in some form. His jaw worked. 

Next to him, Eddie swallowed, audibly, and spoke up. “Hey, don’t get me wrong, Mr. Tozier, but I don’t think I’d be able to share a room with Richie for more than a week without strangling him.”

The aura of tension in the room that had built suddenly dissipated as Maggie started to laugh, and, after a few moments, her husband joined her. Richie shot Eddie a grateful look, and was still looking at him as Eddie continued. 

“Besides, what kind of friend would I be if I crushed Richie’s big California dreams? I don’t even _want_ him to stay here, he’d be too annoying, talking about palm trees and surfing all the time…”

He trailed off, smiling faintly, and his eyes met Richie’s for a second before sliding away. Richie was struck by the way his mouth twisted, eyebrows furrowed in the lie. It _was_ a lie. Eddie was a terrible liar, and he knew it from years of watching Eds pretend he didn’t think Richie’s jokes were funny until he couldn’t take it anymore and busted a gut laughing in the middle of study hall. 

_Hell_ , Richie thought. _He actually doesn’t want me to go. He wants to go to college together. I’m really the biggest asshole in town, huh?_

Wentworth and Maggie were still chuckling faintly, and the atmosphere was almost back to normal.

“I’m feeling a little betrayed right now,” Richie managed. “Although, y’know, Eds, if you want to get rid of me thaaaat bad...” He leaned over, shoving Eddie’s shoulder. “I guess I have literally no choice but to stay in Maine and ruin it for ya, huh?”

“Shut up!” said Eddie, shoving him back, making the dining room table rock a little and everyone’s water glasses shudder like _Jurassic Park_. “And don’t call me Eds!”

_April, 1994_

They were holed up in Richie’s room on a Saturday, reading an extremely bad old issue of _Guardians of the Galaxy_. 

Years later, Eddie associated the moment with the stupid Chef Boyardee ad he’d been looking at when Richie flopped onto his side and started mumbling something unintelligible. All Eddie caught was “--been trying all week--” before it dissolved off, muffled by his sweatshirt where the sleeves hung over his face. He was covering his eyes, glasses pushed off at an absurd angle.

“I can’t hear you, dipshit,” said Eddie. 

“I heard back from UCLA,” Richie said, faintly.

Oh. _Shit_. He’d been trying not to think of the beginning of the end, or -- the sad middle, really, since Bev and Ben had been gone from Derry for years, actually. The Losers were already fragmented, and Bill and Stan and Mike were all planning on different colleges and none of them anywhere in Maine. But Richie leaving… he refused to confront head-on why that in particular felt like such a blow.

Eddie grinned at him, teeth showing as he grabbed the comic book and smacked him with it. “You got in, right?” he asked. “You have to have gotten in.”

“Yeah, I got in,” said Richie, lowering his arms. He took longer than he really needed to adjusting his glasses. He wouldn’t meet Eddie’s eyes, which was _great_ , actually, since Eddie didn’t particularly want to meet his eyes anyway. 

“Well, good,” said Eddie finally. “Can’t wait to get rid of you.” 

Richie barked a laugh. “Ah, that’s nice,” he said. “You think you’re getting rid of me?”

Eddie screwed up his face and smacked Richie with the comic again. “You’re going to California, to bother, I don’t know, Tom Cruise and Julia Roberts.”

Richie _really_ cackled at that one, which pissed him off, but also made his stomach hurt when he thought about going entire semesters without it.

“Nah,” said Richie, after sobering a little. He still wouldn’t meet Eddie’s eyes. “I, uh, thought about it and -- you’re not allowed to tell them I said this!” he added, pointing at Eddie, “I think my parents were maybe kind of right. I’m gonna go to UMaine.”

“Oh, just what I needed,” Eddie grumbled, trying to sound annoyed. Richie would tease the hell out of him if he acted excited - he was already gonna tease the hell out of him, actually, or else Eddie was gonna need to sneak some Alka-seltzer out of the bathroom cabinet without letting on, because his stomach _really_ hurt now, but almost in a good way, if that were possible.

“Aw, you know you’re thrilled,” said Richie, mostly bravado, and it was the unsure tone in his voice that convinced Eddie to let Richie grab him around the neck and knuckle his scalp until they ended up wrestling, Richie cooing and calling him “roomie”, until they tore the cover of the _Guardians_ comic in half.

_August, 1994_

Wentworth and Maggie had been so thrilled that Richie listened to them -- 

(“No, mom, it had _nothing_ to do with you guys, I made the decision on my own! I just wanted to stay here because I knew it would piss Eddie off!”) 

\-- they bought him a car to take with him. Sure, it was a shit-brown 1987 Taurus, but it was a _car_. It meant that he and Eddie could drive themselves to move into the dorms, and save themselves from the Toziers teasing as Richie unpacked. More importantly, it meant avoiding Sonia making her inevitable scene in front of anyone else. 

They hadn’t gotten dorm assignments together, unfortunately -- more than likely since Eddie had applied freakishly early and Richie had sent in his application about three days before the deadline. They weren’t even in the same building. 

Eddie had been visibly disappointed, but Richie, helping him pack, tried to cheer him up by speculating about the possibility that one or both of their roommates would just never show up, or at least be one of those types who spent every waking minute in the library, or have a girlfriend and only come back twice a week to shower and change.

“What if I get a roommate with a girlfriend who brings her over all the time and I get kicked out so they can have _sex_ ,” he said, looking disgusted. 

“Easy,” said Richie. “We just wait until your mom comes to visit, and then I take her up to your room and put the _moves_ on, and give your roomie a show _so tantalizing_ he can never get it up again--”

“I fucking _hate_ you,” Eddie said, punching him in the thigh so hard his eyes watered.

“If you hate me so much, why did you want to share a room in the first place?”

“I _don’t_!” shrieked Eddie, and accidentally upended the box of sweaters he had been about to shove under the bed.

Driving away from his own parents was anticlimactic, the afternoon they actually left. Probably because he picked up Eddie, just after, and boy, he thought he’d seen a Sonia Kaspbrak meltdown before, but apparently those had just been little spats.

Eddie’s face had been white when he got in the car, fingernail marks on his arm where she’d desperately clung to him, trying to keep him from leaving, and Richie almost said something, like, _thank god that’s over_ , not even a mean joke, just expressing relief that he’d actually gotten Eddie out of her clutches. 

He thought better of it after realizing that Eddie’s eyes were red-rimmed and his hands were shaking. He kept them clenched, hard, on his knees, until they got over the Derry town line.

Richie held his breath as they passed it, feeling like he was doing something he wasn’t supposed to, but nothing happened, and eventually Eddie stretched to flick the radio on.

Whitney Houston came on and Richie reached to change it but Eddie smacked his hand away, and instead of arguing he let it play. He didn’t even make fun of Eddie for singing along to the chorus.

It was a half hour drive to campus, but Richie did it in 20 minutes, Eddie muttering darkly under his breath every time he passed someone on 95. 

The parking was shit, and the unpacking even worse -- Eddie was on the third floor of his dorm, and there were no elevators. Both of them had arrived before their respective roommates, so they had no help, but at least they would be able to hang out and enjoy a night of freedom after they finished. 

There was one lone RA who watched them, judgmentally, from the corner bedroom on the first floor as they passed back and forth in front of his door half a dozen times. 

“Make sure you read the rules,” he said, when they sweatily plodded up to Eddie’s room with the last load, intending to rest for a while before unpacking Richie. “There’s a list posted in the foyer.”

Richie was all set for ignoring what the RA, who he’d mentally dubbed Thurston Unpleasant the Fourth, had to say, but Eddie made him read the rule list on their way out.

Along with the expected prohibitions on open flame, typical college substance abuse, and anything that could reasonably explode, most of the rules seemed pretty normal.

“No overnight guests except on weekends,” Eddie read, glumly. “It’s Thursday, so I guess we have to stay in our own rooms tonight.”

“No shit, Eds,” said Richie, “But I don’t think it matters until semester starts next week.”

“I don’t want to get in trouble,” said Eddie, glancing back down the hallway where Thurston had disappeared into his room again. “I _don’t_ want to have to go home,” he added.

Richie almost argued, but he hadn’t gotten his own stuff out of the car yet, and he didn’t feel like pissing Eddie off before he got help unpacking. 

“Okay,” he said. “In that case, let’s go get a pizza before we start with my crap.”

They split a pepperoni at the closest place they could find to campus, and did, in fact, argue briefly over whether Eddie was going to let Richie get half Hawaiian (it was an old argument, though, so Eddie was more goodnaturedly debating how disgusting the pineapple was than actually getting annoyed with him). Richie suggested they stop for ice cream, too, but Eddie shot it down, saying he wanted to get done before dark.

Even though Richie had packed more than Eddie, it felt like it took them less time to get it all out of the car and up to his dorm. He tried to convince Eddie to stay and help him take everything out of its boxes, but Eddie was insistent that Thurston would probably narc on them to Richie’s RA if he stayed and ended up falling asleep there.

“We can hang out all weekend,” he said, before leaving. “We’ll see whose roommate is more obnoxious and decide which room to crash in then.”

“Sounds like a plan,” said Richie, “Except I hope for your sake neither of them are as obnoxious as I am.”

“Shut up,” said Eddie. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Richie watched him go, then craned his neck out the window to watch him walk down the path to the other dorm halls until he was out of sight.

He didn’t sleep well. 

He also didn’t see Eddie again for three weeks.

🎈

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Richie: im going to california later losers  
> Eddie: i wont miss you  
> Richie: jk i must remain here, to irritate you, in person, forever  
> Eddie: nooo dont go to school with me your so sexy aha
> 
> chapter title from _I Will Always Love You_ by Whitney Houston :)  
>  _If I should stay, I would only be in your way  
>  So I'll go, but I know  
> I'll think of you every step of the way  
> And I will always love you  
> I will always love you  
> You, my darling you, hm  
> Bittersweet memories  
> That is all I'm taking with me  
> So, goodbye  
> Please, don't cry  
> We both know I'm not what you, you need_
> 
> I have not publicly posted any fanfic in... a long time. Over ten years. This fandom has _done_ things to me, man. I'm posting it incomplete in hopes it shames me into finishing but... no promising. If this gets like any response I'll post the 2nd chapter tomorrow but the rest is not written although I have a pretty good idea where I'm going. Also if you see any typos or obvious grammatical goofs please feel free to let me know, I edited this but I might have missed stuff.


	2. August - October 1994: It seems we meet in the spaces in between

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one kicked my ass -- I really wanted an additional Eddie section at the end but just struggled and struggled with it before I realized the chapter had naturally come to an end. 
> 
> There’s a couple things in this chapter that I fudged, or did very minimal research. I was born in 1990 and I never went to college. I don’t know shit about living at school or pledging a frat or most of this whole scene, so search me for why I decided to write a college AU. If I’ve gotten anything absolutely glaringly wrong… sorry. We both know that’s not what you’re here for, anyway, right?
> 
> Also just a passive-aggressive note: if you hate 40-y-o Reddie, pls know that this fic may feature technical teenagers but it was not written for you. I'm planning a sequel and they will be OLD in it.

_August - October, 1994_

Eddie was woken up around seven thirty the next morning by someone banging on his door. 

“Kaspbrak!” shouted his RA, when Eddie finally stumbled out of bed and opened it. He couldn’t remember the guy’s name for a second, kept trying to mentally substitute Thurston for some reason, before he finally managed to place it -- Jim. Jim glared at him, thrusting a finger into Eddie’s chest. 

“Your mom has already called _six_ _times_ this morning,” he said, hissing most of it through his teeth. “She’s fucking hysterical, call her the fuck back so she shuts the fuck up.”

Jim stomped off. Well. That was great. Now his chest hurt and his RA hated him before the semester had even started.

Eddie dimly thought he might have promised to call her once he was settled, but he wasn’t entirely sure. Either way he wasn’t surprised she was calling now. She had thrown a complete panicky fit yesterday when he left, seizing his arms and shoulders so hard that he had bruises blooming now, and to be honest -- the entire day had blurred in his memory already. 

It was a relief to have actually left Derry, but if he had been able to summon up one word to describe the truth of the experience it would have been ‘traumatic’. 

He headed downstairs to the lobby, where there was a communal phone for the whole dorm, and called the number his mom had made him memorize when he was just barely old enough to talk. 

“ _Eddie_ ,” she breathed, agonizing as soon as she picked up. “Sweetie, you didn’t _call_ , I thought something _happened_.” 

“I’m fine, ma. Just had an early night after I unpacked. Class starts Monday. There’s not really anything going on until then, I’ll probably try to get ahead on reading.”

Any normal mother would have been happy to hear he was applying himself to his studies. Sonia just sucked in a worried breath.

“You’re not lying to me, right?” she moaned. “You didn’t stay up late with… anyone? You really had an early night?”

Eddie pulled the handset away from his face to glare at it. “ _No_ ,” he said. “I’m all alone. My roommate hasn’t even gotten here yet.”

“Oh, I hope your roommate isn’t another one of those _dirty boys_.” Eddie rolled his eyes. 

“It’s college, ma. I’m probably going to talk to a lot of people I don’t want to actually spend any time with.” 

“Are you _sure_ you don’t want to come home? You can commute!” 

With what car? They’d had this argument. She’d agree to all sorts of things to help him if only he’d come home, and then once he was there it would just make sense to do things her way, to take a year off until she had saved enough to move closer to the school, and then after that it would be another excuse why they couldn’t go, and eventually he’d be living with her at 40, probably working at the Center Street Drug, coming home every Friday to watch NBC Dateline with her so she could convince him he had every new disease they did a report on. 

He still had to push himself to speak now, even over the phone. “No, ma. I only just got here. Let me give it a chance.”

A heavy sigh, now, from the other end of the line. “O _kay,_ Eddie. But you know you can come home _any_ time.”

“I know, ma. Listen. I gotta go.” The phone cord had ended up wound all the way around his wrist and forearm when he wasn’t paying attention. He had to hang up now. He had nothing else to fidget with, after all.

“You’ll call me every day?” 

_Absolutely not,_ Eddie thought. _I call her every day and I’ll end up on my way home for real_. “I can’t call every day. Every other week.”

“ _Every_ week!” He pinched the bridge of his nose with one hand, trying to untangle himself from the cord with the other hand as he balanced the phone between his shoulder and cheek.

“I can’t call that often. I can’t -- I can’t hog the phone. And you can’t call unless its an emergency.”

“If _you_ have an emergency, swear to me you’ll call?”

“Of course, ma.”

It took another ten minutes or so of pleading and platitudes before he finally hung up, exhausted and desperately glad that no one else had come into the lobby. 

He went back to bed but couldn’t fall asleep again, just stared at the ceiling, feeling like he should go do something but not knowing what. The freedom was almost worse than her smothering because it just emphasized how alone he was. He really had meant to read through the first chapters of all his textbooks, as pathetic as it sounded. 

After a while of squeezing his eyes shut but staying completely awake he got back up and arranged and rearranged his desk until he could bring himself to look at his calculus book. There was no sign of his roommate, and eventually Eddie gave up on being conscientious and went to find food. He got an extremely late breakfast at the first dining hall he came upon and then, for lack of anything else to do, decided to wander the campus some more.

He found the buildings all his classes were in, the libraries, and the campus bookstore. He stared, a little wistfully, at the greek houses, where there were several huge crowds of people moving each other in. Guaranteed friends, if you were the fraternity type. Eddie wasn’t.

He debated with himself, after that, thinking he should probably at least try to be social, find someone else all by themselves that he could have dinner with and maybe talk to, but he ended up taking a turkey sandwich and a bag of chips back to his room, where he resentfully flipped through the rest of his textbooks until he couldn’t take it anymore and grabbed the one box he hadn’t unpacked yet.

It was full of all the junk he’d hastily packed last, forgetting that he might want stuff at college other than clothes and books and toiletries. 

Eddie pulled a Spider-Man comic out, stared at the cover, and swore.

Despite feeling lonelier and lonelier as the afternoon had dragged on, he had managed not to think of Richie once. After months of dreading separation, and finally getting what he wanted in Richie actually coming to UMaine with him, he’d spent all day feeling sorry for himself for no actual reason instead of hanging out with his fucking best friend.

He’d been out all day, too, so they’d probably missed each other, and Richie probably thought Eddie was avoiding him for some reason -- Richie usually took it personally when Eddie happened not to see him for a few days at home. After agreeing to hang out today? There was no way he hadn’t assumed Eddie was mad at him.

Eddie pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes and groaned. What he should do, right now, would be to run over to Richie’s dorm and apologize. 

He threw the comic back into the box, swung around to head out the door, and instantly tripped on his dirty laundry from yesterday. 

It took him a minute or two to collect everything and by the time he’d put it all in a pile by the end of his bed everything seemed less urgent. 

“I’ll see him tomorrow,” he mumbled. “It’s Saturday. I can tell him I got lost going around campus and then he’ll make fun of me and it’ll be fine. We can get another pizza and I’ll let him get his gross fruit.”

After the plan had crystallized in his mind Eddie suddenly felt very sleepy. His watch said it was eightish, which seemed both unbelievably late and ridiculously early to actually go to sleep, but he actually hadn’t slept very well, in the shitty dorm bed in a brand new location. 

Changing into his pajamas was the final straw - once he had the flannel pants on he just seemed to naturally end up lying down, and once he was lying down he ended up under the covers, and once he had the blanket over him it was like he couldn’t keep his eyes open.

He woke up the next morning to his roommate arriving, and got into an argument with the guy before he was even done unpacking, over how much cologne he was allowed to spray (preferably? None. Reasonably? Less than he was gassing the place with). 

Saturday was tense, then, and Eddie spent it not really thinking about anything, including Richie, and then he woke up on Sunday and had to get everything ready for his classes that started in the morning, and then he actually went to classes, and weeks passed in a state of sustained but stubborn misery where Eddie thought, every night before going to bed: 

_I’m going to start having a good time soon. This is just settling in. I’m not going crying back to Mommy no matter how long it takes to actually make friends_ . _I’ve made friends before._

But he couldn’t _remember_ making friends, all his life people had thought he was exhausting and annoying, and he found himself sitting on a bench outside of his last Friday class, pointedly not crying and trying to work up the courage to go back to his dorm and face his roommate, Mark, who was pledging a frat and had no time to waste on him except to sneer whenever Eddie looked his way.

“I’m just a fucking loser,” he mumbled, and hauled himself up, not looking where he was turning, and slammed into someone who was coming the opposite direction.

They both ended up on the ground, Eddie yelping a high pitched “Sorry!” repeatedly, before he realized the other guy was laughing so he could probably chill out a little. 

He stood, stepped forward to apologize, then stared, dumbly. 

“Eddie!” cried the guy, rushing in close, and Eddie caught himself in the middle of saying “Do I know you?” before he blinked, and no, of course he knew him, it was _Richie_. 

“Oh my God,” he said, and let himself be hugged.

“What the fuck, dude!” said Richie, squeezing the life out of him. “I haven’t seen you since we got here!” 

“Yeah,” said Eddie, muffled, into his shoulder. His mind was racing. What the _fuck_ , was right. Richie let go of him and they just grinned at each other for a second. 

“You done with class today?” said Richie. 

“Yeah,” said Eddie, again. He was smiling but he wanted to scream. Everything felt weird and confused, and he was just so _happy_ … But he was scared, too. A moment of skin-crawling terror came and went, for no reason at all. He wanted to hug Richie again. 

“Can I come back to your dorm?” Richie asked. “If we go back to mine my roommate will want to hang out with us and I _don’t_ want him third wheeling.”

“ _My_ roommate’s an asshole,” said Eddie. “But he’s pledging Pi Kapp so he’s gonna be gone all weekend to get hazed.”

“Nice, homoerotic spanking works in our favor for once,” said Richie, which was typical. _Fuck_ , Eddie had missed him. 

🎈

On the one hand, Richie was thrilled to be avoiding another Friday night with his roommate. On the other hand, he was even more thrilled to be spending it with Eddie instead. On a third, creepy extra hand that came out of nowhere, he was low-key freaking out that he’d forgotten about Eddie for three weeks.

His roommate had arrived the day after he and Eddie had, and immediately took up a huge amount of Richie’s attention just from being so clearly determined to make best friends. The guy was a nerd, but in a way that was the utter antithesis of the kind of nerd Richie preferred to hang out with. The first thing he’d unpacked was a carton of battered paperbacks, one of which was _The Lord of the Rings_ , which he’d told Richie he traditionally re-read once a year. 

Their meeting had gone… poorly.

“I’m Richie,” he’d said, thrusting a hand out after scrubbing it vaguely against the leg of his pyjamas. 

“Brian,” said Brian, shaking it eagerly. “But everyone calls me Bri. Nice to meet ya, man.” 

Richie had already discarded the concept of getting friendly enough with Brian to call him by a nickname. Still, he wasn’t a total jerk. “Need any help unpacking?” 

“That’d be awesome, Rich. Hey, is that short for Richard? Can I call you Dick? That’d be funny, you do something nice for me and I start calling you Dick. It could be like our roommate inside joke.”

“People don’t usually call me that until I piss them off,” Richie said, wincing internally. Man, this guy was _brutal_. “Which I hope I don’t do until at least second semester.”

Brian laughed. “Okay, okay, Rich it is.”

“I’ll allow it,” said Richie, although he wasn’t too fond of the idea of… _other people_ calling him Rich. He had ended up spending a day hauling more junk and listening to Brian ramble about the fantasy novel he was currently in the middle of, which was apparently gritty and realistic and Richie just had to read it. He had absolutely no plans to. 

This was how he’d forgotten that he’d planned to meet up with Eddie until he was already getting changed for bed. He paused, sitting on the edge of his bed, staring at Brian, who was already asleep. 

_Fuck it, he’ll kill me if I wake him up now_ , he thought, and then promptly forgot all about it again in the morning when he realized he’d need to find some excuses to avoid Brian real fucking quick and staked out a library hiding spot.

Time passed quickly for the amount of misery he was suffering. He couldn’t fucking think why he’d gone to fucking UMaine in the first place. His parents were full of shit - this _sucked_ , and he couldn’t even go to the beach to get his mind off it. He was going to find an excuse to transfer as soon as he could get away with it.

He had been thinking particularly fervently along these lines that day, getting out of his last Friday class, which was Intro to Anthropology and which he _hated_ , when he bumped into Eddie.

They went back to Eddie’s room, which was, thankfully, actually empty (although the shithead RA glared at them as they went in). 

Richie felt like his head was spinning. He threw his bookbag in the corner as soon as they went in, then made himself comfortable sitting cross-legged on Eddie’s bed. Eddie was fluttering around the edges of the room, anxiously tidying things up for no real reason, as if Richie gave a fuck.

“So how have your classes been,” said Eddie, sounding like he didn’t know what else to ask.

“They suck,” said Richie. “Is that what we really want to talk about? We haven’t hung out in weeks, Eds.”

Looking back, he could see where he had _missed_ Eddie. He had missed Eddie, but hadn’t noticed the missing. It didn’t make any sense. And beyond that, he felt like there was more, buried deep, along with the sense of fear that shuddered through him whenever he tried to think too hard about anything other than the pure emotion of how he felt about his friend. 

Eddie gazed back at him, his face pinched. In this moment, their thoughts were identical. Richie knew it somehow. He didn’t want to face it. He wanted to settle into Eddie’s presence and remember that he had a very good reason for going to this school in the first place, and that reason was pacing back and forth in front of his closet. 

“You read the new X-Men?” Richie asked, hoping for safe territory. 

“No,” said Eddie, leaping on the excuse for normality, and Richie grinned, and stood to get the comic out of his bag. They read through it, bickering like they usually did, and slowly the panic eased out of Richie’s ribs. He almost said something serious, then, but after they finished the comic Eddie pulled out his Game Boy and they took turns heckling each other playing _Link’s Awakening_ until they passed out. 

Richie woke up in darkness. His watch said it was just past two. He didn’t remember either of them getting up to switch off the light, but then he didn’t remember falling asleep, either. He wouldn’t have gotten into bed with Eddie on purpose. 

Eddie’s face was creased, his rest clearly not very peaceful, and Richie yearned to smooth a hand over his hair like he might have done three, five, eight years ago. He didn’t dare now. Their bodies had curled towards each other, ostensibly towards the Game Boy, but Richie knew the truth. He bit his lip and eased out of the covers; put the console, now drained of battery, on Eddie’s desk. Maybe if they’d still been awake he could’ve grabbed a blanket and slept on the floor, but he certainly wasn’t taking one from Eddie now. 

He was enough of an asshole to just sleep on Mark’s bed, but he was an asshole who cared about Eddie, and he didn’t know how Mark would react if he came back and found Richie there. If he’d take it out on Eddie. The limited info he’d gotten was not promising. 

For a moment he thought, aching, of just getting back into bed. Surely Eddie wouldn’t care -- he’d fallen asleep with Richie in the first place, right?

Richie caught himself, eyes wide, and swayed sickly on his feet. That was dangerous. This whole train of thought was dangerous. He needed to fucking leave.

Well. If he was making up his mind to go, he could have one for the road, probably. He leaned over Eddie’s sleeping body and gently ran a hand through his hair, bringing his palm forward to briefly cup his cheek. Eddie scowled -- Richie’s blood froze in his veins -- before the expression fractured almost instantly into a calm smile. He sighed heavily in his sleep and rolled over, pushing his face into the pillow. Richie smiled back. 

“Goodnight, Eds,” he whispered. “I’ll see ya tomorrow, kay?”

Brian was gone when he got back to his own dorm, so he almost didn’t feel guilty at all about jerking off, half-frantic, before he fell back asleep. 

He woke up with his hand still in his shorts and almost fell out of bed trying to extricate it before he realized Brian still wasn’t there. The guy apparently had a social life. 

Richie yawned, rolled over and went back to sleep. Saturdays sucked when you didn’t know anyone to hang out with. Maybe he’d try asking if Brian knew about any parties tonight.

🎈

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pennywise, in the sewers, scrunching his eyes shut in concentration: can you fuckers PLEASE stop meeting again its really throwing me off, you're supposed to FORGET and BE MISERABLE  
> maturin, floating somewhere in the macroverse: lmao what if they bumped into each other  
> pennywise: i hate you  
> maturin: dude lol what if they like literally physically ran into each other thatd be SO funny
> 
> chapter title from _Something's Always Wrong_ by Toad The Wet Sprocket:  
>  _Again  
>  It seems we meet  
> In the spaces  
> In between  
> We always say  
> It won't be long  
> But something's always wrong_
> 
> Next chapter might be a while in coming... my actual job has been exhausting lately. I know what's going to HAPPEN in chapter 3 but it's not at all written.
> 
> Thanks for the kudos/comments, they definitely are what motivates me to actually write this instead of just stream-of-consciousness babbling 'and then x happens and then y happens and then eddie is like and then RICHIE is like' at my friends on discord!!

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Rainer Maria Rilke's Put Out My Eyes:  
>  _Put out my eyes, and I can see you still,  
>  Slam my ears to, and I can hear you yet;  
> And without any feet can go to you;  
> And tongueless, I can conjure you at will.  
> Break off my arms, I shall take hold of you  
> And grasp you with my heart as with a hand;  
> Arrest my heart, my brain will beat as true;  
> And if you set this brain of mine afire,  
> Then on my blood-stream I yet will carry you._
> 
> The idea for this coalesced out of the ether when the dinner scene that happens in the first chapter inserted itself fully-formed into my mind while I was driving to work. The rest fell into place around it. These chuckleheads basically wrote some scenes themselves (what is now chapter 2, for example, was not supposed to exist, it was supposed to be like three paragraphs at the end of chapter 1). Let me know if you enjoyed, and I can be found on twitter @kiryusjorts!


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